


responsibility

by politicalmedievalistnerd



Series: Harry Potter Expanded Universe [23]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Harry Potter Next Generation, Meals at the Burrow (Harry Potter), Minor Angelina Johnson, Minor Fleur Delacour, Minor Louis Weasley, Minor Molly Weasley - Freeform, Next Next Gen Weasleys, POV Victoire Weasley, Pregnancy, Swearing, The Burrow (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-18 12:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17581100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmedievalistnerd/pseuds/politicalmedievalistnerd
Summary: "You can wash your hands of it...I will never wash my hands of this."--Victoire lies for her sister. It changes everything.





	1. the burrow

**1 March 2024**

The teacup  _ chinks  _ as Victoire Lupin hits her spoon against it. The long table of people hush, and turn to look at her. She stands, telling herself to relax - she has done this before, and half of them will likely expect it, now that Eva was nearing four months. There’s the common joke going around that she’s set to beat Nanna Weasley, and others claim she seems to think having children is a race. She meets Teddy’s eye, and he nods encouragingly. Her gaze strays to Dominique, who she insisted be there, and Dom wears a loose top with a low cut to hide her slowly swelling bump. 

  
“I have an announcement,” she says, glancing over at the children, all in the living room. Eames squirms on the couch and Caius slams his fists into blocks while their baby sister, Eva, sleeps peacefully. Victoire turns her attention back to the table. “Well, Teddy and I have an announcement.” She pretends not to hear the collective groan from some of her younger cousins. “We’re expecting.”

 

Uncle George shouts, “again?” and her dad just raises his eyebrows in Teddy’s direction, but Nanna Weasley bursts into tears and rushes out of her seat to hug her eldest granddaughter. Teddy stands and makes his way from across the table to her, slinging an arm over her shoulders as they accept congratulations.

 

“I’m really happy for you,” says her Aunt Angelina, grinning. “Four in four years, though? You’re mad. Two was enough for me. Did you find out the gender yet? When’s the baby due?” Victoire and Teddy have always found out the gender - for Eames, they even had a gender reveal party. For the first time, she can’t answer the questions with a background of healer appointments and pregnancy checkups. There are no ultrasounds to show, nothing, for Dominique refuses to admit she is pregnant.

 

“June,” she says, avoiding the first question. 

“June?” her mother repeats, incredulous. “Victoire! You have waited so long to tell us!”  She and Teddy have planned the details of their elaborate excuse, gone over every hole and filled it.

“It was a high risk pregnancy,” Teddy says, leaning in, lowering his voice for good effect. “We weren’t - we were worried. And technically, the baby’s due in August, but they don’t think - it’ll likely be a fairly early delivery.”  _ Fuck,  _ Victoire thinks. She has put her foot in it already. She sends Teddy a grateful look and he strokes her hair.   
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Victoire says, with as much sincerity as she can muster.

“ _ Non,  _ don’t be silly,” her mother says, and pulls her into a hug. After releasing, she spins, silver hair flying.  “Dominique! Come give your sister congratulations!” For Louis has already been one of the well-wishers, kissing his sister on both cheeks. Dominique freezes in her chair, fingering her hair, which has, with a month of no dye, sprouted strawberry roots. “Now!” their mother insists, and Dominique stands, staring blankly, and walks around the table to her sister.

 

“Congratulations,” she says flatly. Victoire smiles graciously.   
“Thank you, Dom,” Victoire replies, squeezing her hand. Their mother looks between them sharply, and pinches Dominique’s cheek.

“Are you well?” she demands of her younger daughter. “You have gained weight.” After thirty years, her accent has faded to all but a trace of formality in the way she speaks. “You look tired.” Dom huffs impatiently.

“I’m just fucking bored, Mama. I can’t apparate, I’m not meant to party until my blood’s back to normal - it’s all fucked,” Dom says. Their mother doesn’t flinch but there is a spark of something sharp in her eyes.

“Language,” she says, before turning to Victoire and kissing her. “If you need anything, Victoire, do let me know. And I adore the shopping for the babies.” Victoire smiles, and Teddy swoops in, her saviour.   
“Thank you so much, Fleur,” he says, opening his arms for a hug. “We really appreciate having you on hand. Maybe Eames and Caius could stay with you for a few days, while we set up the nursery…?” She swoons, no doubt excited to have her grandsons come and stay, and then makes off to check on them. 

 

Dominique stays, staring, and folds her arms across her chest. Victoire reaches her hand out, but her little sister doesn’t take it. 

“Are you okay?” Victoire asks, and Dominique presses her lips into a line. Victoire kisses Teddy on the cheek, and her husband tactfully goes off to rib James. The two sisters slip under the staircase, and in the silence, Victoire finds the time to study Dom. There are bags beneath her eyes and deep crevices in her face, her small arms have grown wider and she looks older, almost. There is no pregnancy glow, just a bone-deep fatigue shrouding her. 

“You said you didn’t want anybody to know it was yours,” Victoire justifies.

“Yeah,” Dom says. “I don’t. Thanks.”

“Are you okay?” she persists. Dominique scoffs, rolling her eyes, and shakes her head.

“I’m bored. Being pregnant is boring. Especially with no Teddy to fuss over you,” Dom says pointedly. Victoire runs her thumb over Dom’s knuckles, thinking. It’s been a good six years since she was Head Girl, but the problem-solving skills never leave you, she thinks wryly.

 

“Come stay. With us, we’ll run around after you,” Victoire says, as cheerfully as she can. Mentally, she is adding up the costs, figuring out where everyone will sleep, how they’ll manage. “I’ll get to bond with the baby, too.” Dom flinches at the word, squeezing her eyes shut.

“I dunno,” she says. “I don’t want the next few months to be all ‘baby baby baby’. I want my normal life back.” Victoire blinks, and for a moment there is a flash of anger running through her veins, striking her. 

 

“Dominique,” she says, in her calm-angry voice that she only uses when she feels like, if she yells, she might not be able to stop. “I am doing everything I can to help you. I’m sorry that you didn’t use contraception. Really. Teddy and I are going to be taking in this baby, lying to everyone we love and saying the child is ours, raising them in our house for at least seventeen years and likely longer. If I could take the pregnancy off you and be pregnant myself, I would, but I can’t, Dominique. You have three more months of dealing with this, and then you can wash your hands of it.” She pulls back. “I will never wash my hands of this.”

“If you’re pissed off,” Dom snaps, “just don’t fucking take it, I don’t fucking care, I’ll drop it on a doorstep in France! Don’t make yourself out to be such a fucking martyr, Victoire. It was your idea.” Victoire thinks that if she were the pregnant one, she likely would have burst into tears at that. Instead, she leaves her sister under the stairs, puts on a brave face, and returns to her relatives.


	2. floo powder power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Can you not," Victoire says, looking strained, "refer to my children as 'parasite bubbles'? Please?"

**5 March 2024**

“I fucking hate flooing.”

 

Victoire sighs from her place on Dominique’s couch. Her sister lives in a small flat in Bristol, with a muggle landlord, and if not for their father’s insistence, there wouldn’t be any floo link at all. The paint on the walls is peeling and the carpet is covered in a thick layer of dog hair, although Dominique has never had a pet. The couch is red and lumpy and too close to the fireplace, and her shins grow hot quickly. Dom stands in the kitchen, barely a metre away, searching for floo powder. 

 

“I can help you look,” Victoire offers, turning around in her seat. “Are you sure it’s in the kitchen?”   
“It’s not a big apartment, Victoire,” Dom says. “Where else would it be?” She groans, and Victoire watches with a frown.

“Dom, you need to rest. You’re the pregnant one.”

“Don’t say that!” Dom spits, making a face. Victoire hops off the lumpy couch, forcing her way into the kitchen where she battles with Dom for elbow room.

“Where did you have it last?” Victoire asks, opening the fridge at random. Bottles of butterbeer cover the top shelf, while the lower ones are filled with stacked, empty take-out containers. Something smashes, and Victoire whips around to see Dom standing between shards of broken glass from a knocked glass. She pulls her wand out of her pocket.  _ “Reparo,”  _ she whispers, and the cup slowly joins back together and nestles on the bench.

 

Dom scrunches up her nose. “Can’t you apparate back to yours and grab the floo powder from there? It’d be a damn sight easier.”   
“Then, when you come home, you still won’t know where it is and you’ll be three months behind,” Victoire chides. Dom rolls her eyes, announces she’s going for a piss, and storms down the miniscule hall to the toilet. Victoire is pleased to note that the ashtray on the coffee table is empty, and there’s not a firewhiskey bottle in sight. And she knows her sister well enough to know she wouldn’t have cleaned to hide the evidence. In the end, the floo powder is between two piles of mismatched, chipped plates of various colours, the top one still with a chunk of meat on it, and Victoire holds her nose and vanishes it. 

 

“I found it, Dom!” she yells. The door to the bathroom flies open, hitting the wall with a  _ thunk,  _ and Dom pulls a face.

“Where the fuck was it?”   
“In your plate cupboard,” Victoire says, and Dom shuts her eyes, leaning back, and rubs her temples. 

“Does everyone go fucking insane while pregnant?” Dom asks. “Or is it just me? You always seemed like a normal person. Apart from the parasite bubble on your stomach.”

“Can you  _ not,”  _ Victoire says, looking strained, “refer to my children as ‘parasite bubbles’? Please?” Dom shrugs. “Where are your bags?” Her sister nods to the only other door in the tiny apartment that isn’t the front door. 

“On my bed,” she says. Victoire nods, stepping out of the kitchen and reaching her arm out. Dom takes the small pot of floo powder, and looks towards the fireplace, squinting her eyes. “This is it, huh?”   
“You’re not staying with me forever,” Victoire warns, waggling her finger. “Back here after-”

“Yeah. After.” The lull in conversation rolls over them like a wave at the beach when you were yelling at somebody on shore and not paying attention to the surf. It runs down the backs of their throats and puts salt in their hair and sunscreen in their eyes that makes red rims around them. 

 

“I can take some of the bags.”   
“That’s okay,” Victoire shakes her head. She ducks into her sister’s bedroom. The double bed takes up most of the room, pressed up against the wall, and there’s only a small space for a side table and a walkway, with a built-in closet. The floor is wooden and a fluffy rug, once-white, is crumpled on the floor, stained and matted. There’s no scent of alihotsy or tobacco and for that Victoire is grateful, but she finds a half-full bottle of Firewhiskey in the bottom of the closet. There are three suitcases on the bed, one partially moth-eaten and another with a broken zipper, and they must contain most of Dominique’s belongings for only two dresses hang in the closet.

 

“I’m gonna go now!” Dom yells, and her voice echoes through the flat. Victoire pauses, and listens as the flames crackle in the fireplace, and Dominique says the address. She hears the familiar whistle of the floo as Dom is swept away, and she turns her attention back to the bags. She lifts the first one, a Falcons duffel bag, and slings it over her shoulder. She leaves the bedroom door open and takes a pinch of floo powder in her hand, throwing it into the fire. The flames turn a bright green and she steps in. “The Lupins’,” she said clearly. There’s a high wail, and the floor falls from beneath her. She spins through the network, keeping an eye out for her living room. 

 

She steps out onto the mat they had in front of the fireplace. It says  _ ‘Welcome to our Home’,  _ with sprigs of lavender decorating it.

“Mummy!” Caius runs to her on his thick little legs, arms outstretched, and Victoire bobs down to meet him. He nuzzles his head against her chest and wraps his arms around her as far as he can manage.

“Cai,” Victoire coos. “Thank you for meeting me.”   
“Mummy, mischew” he says, tugging on her blouse. 

“You missed me?” Victoire repeats, and her young son nods. “I’m just helping Auntie Dom. She’s coming to stay, remember?” Caius screws up his nose in concentration, and then nods vicariously. “Where’s Daddy and Auntie Dom?”

“Dom’s gone upstairs,” Teddy says, striding into the living room. “And I put Eva down to sleep just before. We’re lucky she’s so sleepy, hey?” Victoire kisses Caius’ forehead and stands. 

“Emu!” Caius shouts, pointing at the blanket-covered figure of his older brother, who clearly thinks he’s hiding, in spite of his giggles. At being discovered, Eames shouts and makes to run off, before tripping. Victoire sees the disaster as it happens and shrugs off the duffel bag, running to comfort her eldest son, who has burst into tears.

 

“Hey, hey, Eames, what’s wrong?” she asks, patting the blanket covering her son. It quivers with each of his sobs. 

“I wanna scare!” Eames yells, before bursting into another round of tears. Victoire looks up at Teddy, widening her eyes, and he grabs the duffel bag and heads up the stairs. She hears a thud as Eames hits his tiny fist against the ground, and only at that point does she pull the blanket off him. She clutches his fist in her hand. 

“Don’t hurt yourself, sweetheart,” she says soothingly. “Come on, sit up now.” Her son screws up his nose.

“I HATE YOU!” he screams in the direction of his younger brother, who promptly begins crying too. “YOU MADE IT NOT A SURPRISE!” Caius too starts wailing.

“MUMMY!” he shrieks. “MUMMY!” She winces and touches her other hand to her throat, worrying about his poor vocal chords. 

“Come on now, Eames, he didn’t mean to,” she says, stroking her son’s fine blond hair. He shakes his arm threateningly, but she just grips his fist tighter. Her ears ring. Teddy appears at the bottom of the stairs, now one duffel bag less.

 

“I don’t reckon Dom’ll last,” he says, raising an eyebrow at his children. “She’s gone insane already with all that screaming.”   
“DOM!” she yells at the top of her lungs. “GO INTO EVA’S ROOM, THERE’S A SILENCING CHARM!” She waits and strains to hear the sound of her sister’s feet going across the hall. “And Teddy, please deal with Cai.” Her husband rolls his eyes, hair turning to a rather domestic shade of brown, and he kneels down to start patting Caius’ back. 

“I wanna scare!” Eames cries. Victoire’s mouth twitches.

“Why don’t you scare me, then? You could make me scared very easily,” she tells him. He wriggles, looking up at her with his mouth slightly open, and she stands, making a show of covering her eyes. Victoire walks towards the hall.

 

“Oh my,” she says loudly. “I’m having such a nice day. I hope nobody scares me!” She hears the patter of little feet, as Teddy has managed to stop Caius’ shrieking, and pauses. “La la, such a nice day,” she says again.

“FUCK!” She jumps, and swirls around to rouse on Eames, but he is still poised to frighten her and his little face looks just as confused as she feels.  _ Dominique,  _ she thinks. But first, she has to deal with Eames.

“Oh!” she shouts lamely. “You look so frightening!” Eames giggles. “Now Mummy has to go talk to Auntie Dom, okay? I’ll be back in forty seconds. Can you count to forty?” It occupies him, at least, as he starts his counting.

“One...two...three…..six….two….five…” he says. She gets up, brushes herself off, and makes her way up the stairs, which are directly across from the living room. She finds Dominique in the upstairs hallway, holding her foot awkwardly, leaning against the wall.

 

“Dom,” she says sternly. “Can you please not use that language in front of the children?”   
“I see no children,” Dom says wearily. “Only mandrakes.”   
“Dom, could you please not refer to my children as mandrakes?” Victoire asks. 

“I call it like I see it, it could be worse. I could call them, ‘little shits’.”   
“Swearing, Dom.” Dominique rolls her eyes, and points at her foot. The toe does seem to be swelling to a significant size, and Victoire pulls her wand out of her pocket. She murmurs  _ “Episkey,”  _ and the toe quickly deflates, rather resembling a popped balloon.

“Thanks,” Dom says. “Back to the baby. Is Eva the only well-behaved kid you got?” Victoire’s eye glints, and she snorts.   
“Don’t be too fond of her yet. She’s not started talking. Besides,” Victoire says. “Your godson is Eames.”   
“I don’t know why you decided to name godparents in age order,” Dom says, raising her eyebrows. “What, are you gonna have twelve to get one for everyone? Lily’ll be upset if she misses out, you know that, right?” Victoire licks her lips.

“Four is a fair start.”

 

Dom winces, like her toe hurts again, and Victoire’s eye darts to check. It still looks a normal size. “Vic,” she says. “I don’t want anything to do with - you know, whatever. But I want one thing.”

“You think you’re in a position to be making demands?” Victoire says, but then laughs. “Name it.”

“I want James to be godfather.”

“Dom-” Victoire is protesting without even considering it, but she falls silent. “Fred is next, by rights,” she says eventually. Dom leans against the wall.

“Yeah, I know, but he’ll be right, you’ll pop out another one soon enough. I just - it’s just - right, James was the first family member to find out. Without him I’d be washed up on a beach in fuck-knows-where, USA. I want him to be godfather.” Victoire grimaces at the swearing, but decides to let it slide in this one instance. She runs her fingers through her hair. She can only imagine the steely glint in Aunt Angelina’s eye, the way Uncle George and Fred would both play it off but stew on it for weeks, wondering if she saw them, like so many others do, as the irresponsible ones. And Roxanne would pounce, asking if she would get ago, was she lumped in with the rest of them because she parties? It’s a headache and a half already. 

 

“I’ll talk to Teddy,” she says softly. “Speaking of, I need to get downstairs and alleviate some of that toddler pressure on him. He’s going to grab your other two bags, and he’ll bring them up.” She thinks there might be some tenderness in her sister’s heart, she might offer to help with the kids, but Dom smirks.

“See ya,” she says, and slams the door to Eva’s nursery.


End file.
